


The Falconer's Ghost

by ironthoughts



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 17:05:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironthoughts/pseuds/ironthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Apple holds knowledge in many forms. Written as a gift for AC Secret Santa on tumblr. The prompt chosen was "Altair and Leonardo anything, any universe."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Falconer's Ghost

There was a man outside his workroom.

Leonardo was used to men outside his workroom—Cesare made a habit of sending spies, just to make sure he was actually working—but this man had his back to the window, and stared out into the empty courtyard. By the fifth hour Leonardo could no longer ignore him (five hours! How could he stand so stoically in this heat?) and, setting down his tools, went outside.

"Ser? Excuse me Ser, is there perhaps something I could—"

Leonardo froze. Walking up to the man had put his front in view: a white beaked hood, a scar down his lip. For a terrible moment Leonardo thought it was Ezio, that Ezio had found him and he was here to free him, but no. Even if Leonardo couldn't see the upper half of the man's face, the Assassin's skin was the wrong olive hue, his scowl deep and stern and worn. Not Ezio, not even close. But the cut of his clothing, the red of his sash...

There had been...rumors. Stories of men and women in white hooded robes, springing from rooftops and the occasional haystack to kill with swift neat strikes. And they weren't some new gang sprung up from the rabble to prey on Roma's poor; their targets were all Borgia soldiers, or those who wore Borgia colors.

The Ezio Leonardo remembered had no time to find students, much less train disciples. So he'd shut his ears and tamped down any hope in his heart, at least until he overheard Cesare erupting in a rage one sweltering afternoon.

_Malfatto dead?_ Cesare roared, louder than all the cannons in Roma. _Do you know what it cost me to recruit him? If it was the Assassin who did this—_

Not Ezio, the guard babbled, cowering as Cesare advanced with his sword drawn, a young woman in Assassin's robes, some kind of knife in her sleeve—

The man before Leonardo wore a bracer on his left arm, a rudimentary version of what Ezio had shown him long ago. And strange—he was missing the ring finger of his left hand. The old blade's design had required that sacrifice. Was this...perhaps...?

"Was Ezio your student?" Leonardo asked, glancing around in case any of Cesare's men were nearby. The man turned abruptly and walked away. Leonardo blinked, then hurried after him.

"Ser! Ser, that was completely—" He reached to grab the man's arm and almost fell when his hand passed straight through the elbow. "What...?"

The man, or the vision of a man, kept walking, heedless of Leonardo's confusion. His path took him from the building's shade out into the sunlight; his robes brightened to blinding. When Leonardo could see properly again, the man was gone, and one of the lower guardsmen was staring quizzically at him from behind a cart.

"Are you alright?" the guard asked, pushing up his helmet. It was much too large for him; he looked like a frog under a pot.

"I—" Clearly the man had seen nothing. "I'm alright, yes, I—I should probably get back to my work—"

Leonardo stumbled back to his workroom, where he fussed with his materials for lack of any other ideas. Was he going mad? He was certain he wasn't going mad. Surely there were physiological symptoms of such things. But visions were far from ordinary occurrences...perhaps some change in his meals, or some contaminant in his food? No, that couldn't be it either. His diet had stayed the same since Cesare coerced him here, and Cesare wouldn't allow his prize engineer to be poisoned. He was overlooking something here, something obvious, something—

Leonardo's gaze fell on the Apple.

Ezio had mentioned that the artifact gave men visions, hadn't he? That the Assassin Altair used it to to explore knowledge ahead of his time?

If that was the case, Leonardo reasoned, then he could expect the visions to continue as long as he had the artifact. It'd sat untouched on his desk ever since Cesare brought it in; he had no desire to examine something that had caused Ezio so much trouble. But now, if it was reaching out to him through visions, as it were...

The best thing he could do was to observe whatever he saw, as carefully and thoroughly as possible. If what Ezio said was still true, he might learn something, or even uncover realms of knowledge he'd never touched. Consoled and cheered by this thought, Leonardo dragged back up the plans for the war machine Cesare had requested and returned to adding as many discreet malfunctions as possible.

 

* * *

 

Almost to his disappointment, Leonardo didn't see the hooded man for another two weeks. The next time he appeared, it was late into the night; Leonardo saw him when he went outside to stretch his legs.

Despite the hour, the man stood in the same position as before: back straight, arms crossed, gaze straight ahead, a scowl like weathered stone. There'd been no portraits of Altair in any of the Codex pages Ezio found him, but Leonardo wanted to think this was the grandmaster. The Assassin had studied the Apple extensively, after all; perhaps some imprint of him had been left in the artifact. If it gave men visions of the future, surely it could show visions of the past as well.

And there was a certain comfort, too, in thinking this fabled figure had come to guide him. Leonardo had loved deciphering Ezio's Codex pages, but the words he'd gleaned had all felt meant for Ezio alone by virtue of his friend's profession. Leonardo was not a man of violence, but he was a man of knowledge, and sitting there at his worktable, looking upon the writings of a man of knowledge meant only for his brothers of violence, it'd felt...

It'd felt lonely.  

Leonardo waited until Altair turned away, as before, and started walking.

When they reached the hay cart Leonardo tensed, expecting Altair to disappear, but the Assassin kept walking. Past the cart, along a stack of barrels, crouched down past a row of crates. He stopped at a corner of a building until a guard went past, then darted to a wooden scaffold against the compound wall. Completely ignoring the ladder beside him, he sprang up to the nearest handhold and climbed easily to the scaffold's top.

Leonardo was left gaping after him. Altair vanished momentarily as he pulled himself onto the top ledge, then reappeared as he began scaling the compound wall. He climbed like he had no weight, slipping sideways or lunging forwards to the next handhold. If Leonardo ever doubted this was a vision, the display before him was certainly proof; Altair's movements made no sound, dislodged no grit or sand from the bricks. He didn't even have a shadow in the moonlight.

He was halfway up the wall when he shimmered and disappeared.

Leonardo frowned, pondering. Maybe the visions only worked within a certain radius? He would have to follow Altair to see the end of the vision, if that was the case. Tailing him through the compound would be easy enough, but climbing the wall...

He really did want to know what Altair was doing though.

And in any case, if you considered it, the compound walls weren't that high, relatively speaking. And he didn't have to climb the scaffolding; he could just take the ladder. As for the walls, they were old, with deep fissures between the bricks. He wouldn't have a problem finding handholds or wedging his feet in place. Now, thought Leonardo, thoughts abuzz with possibility, if only he had something that would help him grip the bricks.

 

* * *

 

The gloves turned out excellently.

Leonardo started off small, first climbing the shelves in his workroom, then the back wall of the watch tower outside. It strained him in places he didn't realize could hurt; his back, in particular, was not pleased about this new activity. But he could thank Cesare, at least, for granting him no workshop assistants. All that carting and lifting of his own supplies gave him enough starting strength to inch up the wall without falling apart.

During the two months it took to make the gloves and practice climbing, Leonardo saw Altair three times. Each time was the same as before—he snuck to the wall of the compound, climbed the scaffold, and vanished halfway up. When Leonardo finally thought himself ready to follow, he was so giddy with anticipation he nearly alerted the night patrol jostling some barrels as he snuck past.

Up the ladder as Altair scaled the scaffolding. Follow the Assassin's footsteps...

They passed the point where Altair usually disappeared. The Assassin kept climbing, then suddenly started edging sideways, towards the curve of the watchtower, and out past the safety of the scaffolding's platform. Leonardo bit his lip and followed, gloves creaking. He scanned the wall before him, thankful that the moon highlighted its crevices, and then caught sight of the ground below.

...oh.

Oh no.

He was—

—he was really high up.

Leonardo clenched his teeth with a strangled curse and forced himself to look anywhere that wasn't down. A sudden wind picked up, stinging his face and tugging his clothes; that did not help one bit. He blinked away grit and against cast his gaze anywhere but down, and a flutter of moonlit white above him caught his eye.

Altair, climbing. Climbing higher.

The Assassin reached the watchtower parapet and vanished over the edge.

Leonardo measured the distance with watering eyes. So Altair wanted to reach the top of the watchtower. Why? Where could he possibly go?

Then Leonardo brightened. Altair hadn't disappeared despite the time it'd taken for Leonardo to craft the gloves. He wouldn't mind Leonardo taking a few extra weeks to practice his climbing.

 

* * *

 

He was getting really good at this.

Each night when he could, Leonardo would sneak to the wall and climb the route Altair had marked for him, inching further up the watchtower each time. Twice the Assassin led the way; the other nights, Leonardo climbed on his own.

The third time Altair appeared to lead the way, Leonardo nearly kept pace with him, shimmying along the wall and then up the watchtower. When they got to the parapet Altair pulled himself onto the ledge without hesitation, but Leonardo hazarded a careful peek first. The only guard on duty was asleep, curled up in the parapet's shadow and snoring mightily.

Leonardo climbed over just in time to see Altair cross the tower, step onto the parapet, and jump.

He vanished in a flutter of moonlit robes.

Leonardo gawped.

His head churned with frantic silence. After all this way, after all this time, he was supposed to jump from the tower? After all the effort he had put in, the hours he spent making the gloves, the _time_ he had spent with the Assassin...was that all Altair had to tell him? Just this, a silent demonstration, while Ezio got page upon page of lost wisdom? Or—and Leonardo's throat closed in despair—or was this all the truth left for him, that he could take the parapet or yield to Cesare's thumb...

The guard snored on, oblivious to his distress, and Leonardo almost flung himself off the tower then and there.

A passing fancy. He'd let himself be taken in by a fancy, that was how miserable life here had made him. He'd become so desperate that a simple hallucination was now the greatest motivation of his life, that he was left crafting tools to chase ghosts; how had he fallen this far? How had he—why was he even following this man, why—

—why _was_ he working for Cesare?

Leonardo froze, heart pounding. Suddenly he couldn't bear to move or think. The air pressed in like a stranglehold; the moon burned bright with malicious loathing.

His hands shook, would not stop shaking. It was long time before he could climb back down.

 

* * *

 

Cesare took the Apple four days later.

That morning Leonardo sat at his table staring at the dust motes of his workshop, the plans of his war machines hovering in his mind's eye. With Altair gone, it was all Leonardo could think. With the Apple gone, he could only think...Cesare had to be preparing to take Roma soon. He would send out Leonardo's machines. They were not perfect, of course—Leonardo had seen to that—and Cesare would doubtless hound him for improvements, which he would delay; but even as they were, the destruction they would cause, the death...

Leonardo buried his face in his fists. He could not stop them. And he had no friends in Roma who could. Cesare had made sure of that, kept him locked away lest his enemies try to find him.

Enemies. Assassin.

Ezio.

Ezio. Yes. Ezio could stop Cesare's machines, now that he had his newfound brotherhood. He only needed to know where the machines were held, their weaknesses beforehand. And Leonardo knew, Leonardo could tell him, he only had to—

—and he could. Altair had shown him. He could do it. He could get to Ezio.

Leonardo grabbed the climbing gloves from his desk and ran.

Out of the building's shade. Into the sunlight. Past the cart. The stack of barrels was gone. The crates were different. The scaffolding was weathered; the ladder was worn. Up the ladder, up the wall, sideways to the tower, up the tower (don't think of the top, don't think, don't think—)

The guard was turning down the staircase of the tower when Leonardo reached the top. No one came up to replace him.

Leonardo pulled himself over and ran to the opposite edge. Altair had jumped from here, not a pause or break in stride, as if he'd had every confidence in landing safely. A leap of faith. Hadn't Ezio called it that?

Leonardo poked his head out over the parapet. There was a bank of leaves blown against the base of the wall.

...Ezio had explained how to perform the leap, once. The theory was straightforward. A simple matter of physics.

Cesare's machines would leave Roma in ruins. A simple matter, again, of physics.

Leonardo stepped back from the ledge, his hand resting where Altair had stood. Then he climbed onto the parapet, closed his eyes, and leapt.


End file.
